There is no concrete evidence showing ARX, MMO, Kreen, Archoil, Zmax, etc. doing anything yet you find supporters of each bickering about the others.

Fixed it for you.

Since there *is* concrete evidence that ARX does work, from Dnewton to the late Gary Allen to taxi tests to a thread by Artem, (remember that one, where you, demarpaint and Mystic jumped all over him because he said it worked better than kreen.), you "fix" is wrong.

_________________________

Lack of harm is not proof of benefit.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance. Hippocrates

There is no concrete evidence showing ARX, MMO, Kreen, Archoil, Zmax, etc. doing anything yet you find supporters of each bickering about the others.

Fixed it for you.

Since there *is* concrete evidence that ARX does work, from Dnewton to the late Gary Allen to taxi tests to a thread by Artem, (remember that one, where you, demarpaint and Mystic jumped all over him because he said it worked better than kreen.), you "fix" is wrong.

All I said was I thought etc. meant A-Rx..........Are you reading between the lines too? Gary Allen also stated pay for the test and you'll get the results you want.

IIRC Artem also tried other cleaning products before A-Rx, so giving any product total credit for results would be difficult.

This does get old. Most of the people here who said they had tried MMO or Kreen said that those products worked for them. I remember only a few negative posts about those products. I am not going to go into all of the endless routine that all of that is just anecdotal evidence. All we have for most of these products is anecdotal evidence. Some big oil company is not going to run scientific testing for us. Unless somebody here was super rich and could afford to pay for the testing.

This has all been gone over again and again. People should be allowed to talk about what products they have tested. There would be little to talk about here if people were not allowed to discuss their experiences here with various products.

Tested how? The only "testing" I have ever seen here is along the lines of hand-to-the-manifold testing; blurry and/inconclusive cell phone pictures; supposed better tests that under the lightest of scrutiny reveal that multiple parameters were changed for the test; testimonials about how "better" the car feels and how it is "smoother" or "idles better"; and tales of how somebody's grandpappy always added that to their ND30 oil and it "worked for years". You seen anything better?

I'm not being argumentative but each and every test I have seen has been so full of statistical or methodical holes as to be completely and utterly worthless.

Originally Posted By: Mystic

This has all been gone over again and again. People should be allowed to talk about what products they have tested. There would be little to talk about here if people were not allowed to discuss their experiences here with various products.

Tested how? The only "testing" I have ever seen here is along the lines of hand-to-the-manifold testing; blurry and/inconclusive cell phone pictures; supposed better tests that under the lightest of scrutiny reveal that multiple parameters were changed for the test; testimonials about how "better" the car feels and how it is "smoother" or "idles better"; and tales of how somebody's grandpappy always added that to their ND30 oil and it "worked for years". You seen anything better?

I'm not being argumentative but each and every test I have seen has been so full of statistical or methodical holes as to be completely and utterly worthless.

Originally Posted By: Mystic

This has all been gone over again and again. People should be allowed to talk about what products they have TRIED. There would be little to talk about here if people were not allowed to discuss their experiences here with various products.

I fixed it. Unfortunately even tested products must be taken with a grain of salt, as I already mentioned above.

I don't disagree with your change, but tell me how that makes a difference.

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Originally Posted By: kschachn

Tested how? The only "testing" I have ever seen here is along the lines of hand-to-the-manifold testing; blurry and/inconclusive cell phone pictures; supposed better tests that under the lightest of scrutiny reveal that multiple parameters were changed for the test; testimonials about how "better" the car feels and how it is "smoother" or "idles better"; and tales of how somebody's grandpappy always added that to their ND30 oil and it "worked for years". You seen anything better?

I'm not being argumentative but each and every test I have seen has been so full of statistical or methodical holes as to be completely and utterly worthless.

Originally Posted By: Mystic

This has all been gone over again and again. People should be allowed to talk about what products they have TRIED. There would be little to talk about here if people were not allowed to discuss their experiences here with various products.

I fixed it. Unfortunately even tested products must be taken with a grain of salt, as I already mentioned above.

I don't disagree with your change, but tell me how that makes a difference.

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Originally Posted By: kschachn

Tested how? The only "testing" I have ever seen here is along the lines of hand-to-the-manifold testing; blurry and/inconclusive cell phone pictures; supposed better tests that under the lightest of scrutiny reveal that multiple parameters were changed for the test; testimonials about how "better" the car feels and how it is "smoother" or "idles better"; and tales of how somebody's grandpappy always added that to their ND30 oil and it "worked for years". You seen anything better?

I'm not being argumentative but each and every test I have seen has been so full of statistical or methodical holes as to be completely and utterly worthless.

Originally Posted By: Mystic

This has all been gone over again and again. People should be allowed to talk about what products they have TRIED. There would be little to talk about here if people were not allowed to discuss their experiences here with various products.

I fixed it. Unfortunately even tested products must be taken with a grain of salt, as I already mentioned above.

Tried means just that, tried. Tested would open up a whole big can of worms, just like it did here. People would like to see how the test was conducted and if it was valid or not, then systematically pick it apart if they like. If someone tried something it is a lot less formal IMO, and lets the guy off the hook for those looking to attack, question, challenge, or even praise the results.

I posted what I observed when using certain additive(s) in 1 or more my cars. Everybody should take what I posted as an experience in my car(s) alone in my area(So Cal) with my driving style.

One thing for sure is I don't post positive result(s) because I was paid to do it.

Example, I could not get Kreen in California so I used non-solvent Lubegard engine flush with reduced dosage. Instead of full bottle for 10-15 minutes I used 1/2 oz per quart for 200-300 miles. I didn't follow manufacture's direction, I tried to see if my way worked or not and it worked as I expected.

But if you "try" something, there has to be a conclusion. Even if your conclusion is that it did nothing, that may or may not be true depending on how you arrived at that conclusion. I can say I tried an additive and conclude that it did nothing. However, it may be that I was looking at the color of the oil during my trial and this is not a reliable indicator of performance.

Take this thread for example. The OP tried Archoil. Besides stating that he thought it didn't do anything, he also mentions a 1% increase in mileage. Now 1% is meaningless in a real-world test. The prevailing winds here in Milwaukee during my morning commute (on the lake, off the lake), coupled with the changing time of sunrise and the presence or absence of holidays all would contribute to any mileage variation that is impossible to factor out in this example.

So am I to conclude from this one trial that on a global scale Archoil is worthless? Or do I say this is a meaningless test and no conclusion can be made?

If no conclusion can be made, and if this trial is no different than any other trial here on BITOG, why should anyone alter their opinion based on these results?

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Tried means just that, tried. Tested would open up a whole big can of worms, just like it did here. People would like to see how the test was conducted and if it was valid or not, then systematically pick it apart. If someone tried something it is a lot less formal IMO, and lets the guy off the hook for those looking to attack, question, challenge, or even praise the results.

But if you "try" something, there has to be a conclusion. Even if your conclusion is that it did nothing, that may or may not be true depending on how you arrived at that conclusion. I can say I tried an additive and conclude that it did nothing. However, it may be that I was looking at the color of the oil during my trial and this is not a reliable indicator of performance.

Take this thread for example. The OP tried Archoil. Besides stating that he thought it didn't do anything, he also mentions a 1% increase in mileage. Now 1% is meaningless in a real-world test. The prevailing winds here in Milwaukee during my morning commute, coupled with the changing time of sunrise and the presence or absence of holidays all would contribute to any mileage variation that is impossible to factor out in this example.

So am I to conclude from this one trial that on a global scale Archoil is worthless? What other conclusion could be made?

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Tried means just that, tried. Tested would open up a whole big can of worms, just like it did here. People would like to see how the test was conducted and if it was valid or not, then systematically pick it apart. If someone tried something it is a lot less formal IMO, and lets the guy off the hook for those looking to attack, question, challenge, or even praise the results.

There's really no point in me going in circles with words, we're very much alike. People like us should "try" the product and come to our own conclusions. That's what I did with a few different products over the years. Products that I thought had some merit. Some where good, some were total garbage. I posted my observations, took some heat at times, and moved on. Other times I had people thanking me.

Scientific testing of the vast majority of any of these products is out of the question. It might cost a million dollars or more to run some kind of testing.

I look at it this way-if 300 guys here have used MMO or Kreen or some other product, and 98% of those guys have obtained what they consider to be positive results, maybe the product is worth a try. About the only other testing that anybody here could afford is to take photos of the engine on the inside after a cleaning product has been used or do compression testing with a quality compression tester. And of course we have to take the word of whoever presents the before and after photographs and the before and after compression testing. If somebody uses a poor quality compression tester the results might as well be thrown out.

There are a very few products that probably did get tested. For example, Valvoline not so long ago was selling their own oil supplements. Scaheffer's has also sold old supplements. And Lubegard is probably a big enough company to do some testing. Kreen is sold by Kano Labs, which as far as I know is a reputable company. MMO is sold by Turtle Wax which is also a company of some size.

I don't think I would want to mess around with some concoction that somebody had developed in their garage. But on the other hand a lot of successful companies started in garages.

I also am not going to mess around with any product where the promoters play fast and loose with the facts, or a product that is promoted at a state fair and nobody has ever heard of the product before. If somebody says, 'The product was tested in a taxi company,' is it okay for me to ask what the name of the taxi company was, and when the testing took place? Or if somebody says, 'There is no need to test this product further. I have already tested it with a compression tester.' Really? Maybe I tested my revolutionary product SuperX Oil Supplement also with a compression tester. Anybody can make any kind of claims.

And I think it is wrong to throw out ancedotal testimony. If hundreds of guys have tried some product here isn't their testimony worth something? It may not be scientific evidence, but who is going to try that product if 95% of the guys say they have negative results or harmful results? So can't the reverse also be true? If the vast majority of hundreds of guys trying a product have obtained positive results, isn't there some possibility that the product might be good?

But if you "try" something, there has to be a conclusion. Even if your conclusion is that it did nothing, that may or may not be true depending on how you arrived at that conclusion. I can say I tried an additive and conclude that it did nothing. However, it may be that I was looking at the color of the oil during my trial and this is not a reliable indicator of performance.

Take this thread for example. The OP tried Archoil. Besides stating that he thought it didn't do anything, he also mentions a 1% increase in mileage. Now 1% is meaningless in a real-world test. The prevailing winds here in Milwaukee during my morning commute (on the lake, off the lake), coupled with the changing time of sunrise and the presence or absence of holidays all would contribute to any mileage variation that is impossible to factor out in this example.

So am I to conclude from this one trial that on a global scale Archoil is worthless? Or do I say this is a meaningless test and no conclusion can be made?

If no conclusion can be made, and if this trial is no different than any other trial here on BITOG, why should anyone alter their opinion based on these results?

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Tried means just that, tried. Tested would open up a whole big can of worms, just like it did here. People would like to see how the test was conducted and if it was valid or not, then systematically pick it apart. If someone tried something it is a lot less formal IMO, and lets the guy off the hook for those looking to attack, question, challenge, or even praise the results.

I tested mos2,running a new to me vehicle on my commute which is flat and 30+ miles each way. I established a baseline after 3000+ miles,tracking every tank of fuel,then added mos2 and again tracked consumption for a total of 10000 miles all told. I used cruise control,bought fuel from the same station and pump every time,so the only actual variable that was uncontrolled was wind speed. And even then my observations weren't good enough. All I wanted to to was to test the stuff objectively and see if there were any changes in fuel consumption that could be considered more than just tank to tank variation. I also wanted to see if my observations in my other vehicles were more than just in my head. And I proved it to myself that the stuff worked. I gained iirc 3-4mpg consistently,on the highway. City mileage wasn't noticeable one way or the other however on the highway the increase was significant enough that 1 tank of fuel savings more than covered the cost of the additive,which I call good return on investment. Now if all my miles were city driven I'm confident there would be little to no fuel economy improvement because of how traffic works,constant stops and starts but when on the highway there was a significant,repeatable improvement.